12th Five Flavours Asian Film Festival

The 12th edition of the festival took place in Warsaw in two cinemas: Muranów and Kinoteka on November 14-21. At 65 shows in Warsaw, we presented 37 full-length feature films, including 5 European premieres. During Wrocław's replica, 6 titles were shown in the New Horizons Cinema. In total, over 12,000 viewers watched the films. The artists from Asia came to Warsaw, who presented their works and met with the audience: Chan Tai-lee, Yang Mingming, Yuan Li, Nam Ron, Bront Palarae, Derek Chiu, Leon Le and Dain Said.

The 12th Five Flavours was the fifth edition of the Festival with its visual identification based on the Far-Eastern lunar calendar and zodiac signs. 2018 was the Year of the Earth Dog.

All films were presented in their original languages, with English and Polish subtitles. The full program of the festival with descriptions of all movies in English were available on the festival website: piecsmakow.pl

program

In Asian cinemas, the year 2018 was marked by a variety of auteur projects by renown directors, classic genre cinema, and blockbusters gaining momentum in world-wide box offices. At the same time, a new generation of filmmakers is on the rise – their films already gain visibility and receive awards at international festivals.The program of 12 edition included the most prominent Asian titles of the season, retrospectives summarizing the new directions of the film industry of the region, and archival classics. Among the films screened were "Killing," the new film by Shinya Tsukamoto, the Japanese master of auteur cinema, and "Hotel by the River," another very personal project by the director Hong Sang-soo. The program also included the new films by three filmmakers who excel in using the conventions of genre cinema. In "Youth," Feng Xiaogang shows the Cultural Revolution from a new, fresh perspective. In "Birds Without Names," Kazuya Shiraishi uses the convention of a psychological drama to create a nuanced portrait of a romantic relationship, while his "The Blood of Wolves" is a daring gangster film based on a classic motif of two battling yakuza clans. In "Dukun," Dain Said combines the elements of a courtroom drama and a horror, creating a truly disturbing image of the relationship between power and black magic. The horror is also present in the series "Folklore" - a break-through production of HBO Asia, in which five renown Asian directors created an anthology of fear rooted in the folk tales of the region. Two episodes of the series will be screened at the Festival: "Folklore: Pob" by Pen-ek Ratanaruang, and "Folklor: Toyol" by Ho Yuhang. The high-budget films are best represented by Chinese blockbusters – "Operation Red Sea," directed by the master of action cinema, Dante Lama, and a historic "Brotherhood of Blades II: The Infernal Battlefield" by Lu Yang, a talented director of a new generation.

Guests

Competition: New Asian Cinema

As usual, the main axis of the festival was the competition section presenting new auteur cinema from countries such as Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, the Phillipppines, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Japan, China, and Thailand. The Q&A sessions with festival guests after the screenings were a great opportunity to discuss values, cinephile fascinations, and contemporary culture. New Asian Cinema is a meeting space for the avant-garde aesthetics, controversial statements, formal experiments, and fresh voices commenting on the history of Asia and its current reality. The eleven titles of the section compete for the honorary Grand Prix of the 12th Five Flavours AFF.

Opening and closing film

The 12th edition of the festival opened with "Youth" - a spectacular bittersweet story directed by Feng Xiaogang, one of the leading Chinese filmmakers. The closing film was the Taiwanese animation "On Happiness Road" by Sung Hsin-yin, in which the director explores the generational experience of people growing up in Taiwan during the turbulent political changes of the late 1980s

Animation

One of the main sections in 2018 were showcases Asian animations – avant-garde, independent animated films, which break conventions and push the limits of genres. The program includes, among others, this year's winner of Annecy IFF, "Funan" by Denis Do, the experimental "Violence Voyager" by Ujicha, and the dystopian "Dahufa" by Busifan.

Special Screenings

Special Screenings is a section devoted to the films especially important for Asian cinema, and new productions by filmmakers well-know to the Festival audiences. The lineup included "Hotel by the River," one of the newest films by the renown Korean director Hong Sang-soo, the radical "Killing" by Shinya Tsukamoto, a Chinese box-office hit "Operation Red Sea" by Dante Lam, and the mobster tale by Kazuya Shiraishi - "The Blood of Wolves."

Asian Cinerama

For the second time, Five Flavours teamed up with Asian Film Awards Academy, the institution supporting the promotion of high quality commercial cinema from Asia. The result of this collaboration is a section made up of stunning genre cinema and the newest hits by renown filmmakers, nominated and awarded at this years Asian Film Awards gala. The highlights of the section include the period action film "Brotherhood of Blades II: The Infernal Battlefield" by Lu Yang, the political thriller "1987: When The Day Comes," and Wilson Yip's "Paradox."